GOSSIP ON ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 85 



may be readily made to prove its truth ; while all the argument 

 adduced in favor of the remoter antiquity of man, if valid, must prove 

 that chronology to be a falsehood. My ideas upon the subject 

 tally more with those of M. Desnoyers than with Sir Charles 

 Lyell's, although distinct from either. I acknowledge the truth as 

 advanced in part by the former, but dissent altogether from the 

 conclusions of the latter. At the same time, my solicitude is not on 

 account of my own views, but lest those of Sir Charles Lyell should 

 have more importance than they deserve. You know what he means 

 — that he thinks he has good evidence in strata in which the re- 

 mains of man are found with those of extinct species of animals, to 

 prove not only the age of such strata, but also the coeval existence 

 of man and the extinctions with which he there seems to be asso- 

 ciated, and that man's proper time on this planet will thus be tens 

 of thousands of years (it does not matter how many) further back 

 than his first appearance in the Garden of Eden. I believe that in 

 all this he is mistaken — that he takes things too much as he finds 

 them, for the purpose of establishing a foregone conclusion, and 

 attaches too little importance to the changes that have taken place 

 on the earth during the past six thousand years. He ignores alto- 

 gether such an event as the Noachian deluge, and the phenomena 

 which must have accompanied and followed it. He does not allude 

 to it, and his silence is more eloquent than words to show that he 

 does not believe in it. I do believe in it, and depend upon it as 

 strong evidence in disproof, and to uphold my OAvn vicAvs, al- 

 though I bring these forward with diffidence and great humility. 

 They may or may not be entitled to examination. It is, hoAvever, 

 an attempt in a safe direction, and it does not follow that some 

 more efficient explorer of the arcana of nature, may not be privi- 

 leged to reconcile the discrepancy if any, that prevails between the 

 conflicting testimony of geology, as held by some, and what is 

 generally termed revealed religion. 



In the early period of man's history, there was doubtless the 

 same migratory disposition as at the present day. We find it 

 recorded that the eldest son of the first human pair, was the first 

 emigrant. For the period of sixteen or seventeen hundred years 

 between the creation and the Noachian deluge, we may suppose 

 that offshoots were continually transplanting themselves, not only 



